Meaning of a Warrior
by EAP615
Summary: Events causing guilt and regret can drag us down, but sometimes it only take a good friend and good words of advice to allow us to rise again.


**Hey there, readers!**

**So this little prompt was based on a comment in a discussion from the RWBY wiki. I don't remember what the discussion was or who commented, but I thought that it was too good of a prompt to not write about. And I may ormay not have butchered Ruby and Blake's characters in this fic, so sorry about that.**

**Anyways, enjoy!**

**RWBY does not belong to me, that title goes to Monty Oum/Roosterteeth.**

* * *

Ruby sat on the deserted rooftops of Beacon, the freezing winter breeze brushing into her face and whipping her hair around in whatever direction that it pleased. She sat quietly as she consumed herself with her thoughts as she stared off into the evening sky. But they were not thoughts of curiosity and wonder, they were thoughts of guilt, regret, sadness, and despair, as well as all hopes that she could erase the whole day's events with her legs pressed to her chest and her eyes dampened with tears.

* * *

Team RWBY's afternoon had contained a training mission to a village that was experiencing Beowolf and Ursa troubles. At first, it wasn't all that difficult or special. Ruby had sent Blake and Yang to one end of the relatively large village while Weiss and herself went to the other. They had encountered some of the expected Grimm creatures along the way and handled them with relative ease. Again, nothing too special.

But a sudden turn was what made this training event significant.

After some time, the two were being fired upon by some unseen force armed with assault riffles. When the pair had managed to find cover near some abandoned houses, they could see their attackers. The dozen or so attackers were all wearing metallic chest plates and masks along with black undershirts and pants, and all were sporting and single red wolf head logo on their backs.

Neither Ruby nor Weiss had any idea what the White Fang would be doing in this particular village and why they were attacking them, but that didn't matter now with much more important things to worry about. Knowing they couldn't both take them all on, they split up and caused the large group of members to divide.

They chased Ruby to what appeared to be a sort of marketplace, where she made her stand. She was able to take out all of them in a relatively short period of time with non-lethal hits, so she made a mad dash to reconnect with her partner. She finally found her partner, but not in the way she was hoping. Weiss was currently fighting the final member of her own group, a much taller, much more muscular individual who was overpowering the heiress. She was showing obvious signs of fatigue, and the fact that the man was surprisingly agile and very fit did not help Weiss at all. He finally got his target into a vulnerable position when he managed to sneak a good elbow shot to his opponent's stomach, rendering Weiss helpless on the ground bellow her as the White Fang member drew his sword for the kill. Ruby knew that she was too far to be able to intervene the fight and save her partner, even with her aura semblance. So she activated Crescent Rose into its rifle form, aimed it at the intended target, and fired.

The bullet struck the man in the neck, causing him to fall to the floor immediately. Ruby paid no mind to that now, as her partner was her first concern in mind. When she finally reached the heiress, she could see that her normally all white attire was caked with red and her icy blue eyes were widened with shock directly at the critically injured man who had attacked her. Ruby followed her partner's gaze at the said man.

The man's fall from being shot had caused his helmet to separate from his head, exposing to the partners that he was mildly youthful, barley a few years older than they were, as well as expose his facial features to the two girls in front of him. Crimson blood from his neck wound was splattered across his tanned skin and his medium length blue hair flailed around his head as well did his small grey wolf ears that poked from the top of his scalp. But what really affected Ruby were his widened, horrified eyes. The green orbs were shining with paralyzed fear. He knew he was going to die, Ruby and Weiss knew it too. He was losing far too much blood than what would allow him to live. The horror dancing in those haunting eyes was what hurt Ruby's heart the most. And the pain only got worse when the lights in those eyes had faded and the man had died.

Ruby immediately turned her head and looked away from the now dead body and covered her eyes with her hands, unable to look at her first kill.

"Ruby…"

Weiss attempted to comfort her mortified partner, but to no avail. No sobs emitted from the poor girl, but one could easily see the overwhelming grief within her.

"Ruby, Weiss, what's-"

Weiss turned to see that the other two members of their team had arrived, and Yang had silenced at the sight of them with the dead body.

* * *

Needless to say, Blake was surprised to see that Ruby had actually killed another human, but understood her leader's motives. Normally, she was intolerant of killing of humans or faunus, but she saw it as justified, as did the rest of her team. Unfortunately, their leader did not see the situation this way. The entire Dust Ship ride back to Beacon, Ruby sat in dead silence, not responding to any attempts at comfort from either Yang or Weiss. This greatly worried all three of them. It was so unnatural to see the normally joyful girl to be so quiet and distant. In all honesty, they all feared what Ruby could possibly be thinking.

When they finally arrived at Beacon, Ruby still had yet to speak to any of her teammates. When she finally did, it was a quite discomforting, "Just leave me alone." before heading off somewhere within Beacon. Following her sister's undesirable departure, Yang initiated a search party for their array leader. Blake herself had been given the task of checking the rooftops of the academy. And sure enough, there Ruby was, curled in a ball, blankly ignoring her teammate's presence as she looked up at the stars.

"Ruby?"

Said girl had yet to give acknowledgement to her as of yet, even when Blake took a seat next to the girl.

"Ruby, you know what happened today was not your entire fault. You were protecting a teammate, you did it for a good reason"

Ruby then mumbled something inaudible, which attracted the faunus's attention, mostly because it was the first thing Ruby has directly said to her all day.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said, but we're supposed to be _helping _people, not _killing _them!"

"Ruby, it wasn't…"

"I _killed _someone today, Blake! Not a Grimm, but an actual _person_! I wanted to help people, and today I just ended a persons' life!"

Blake went silent as Ruby continued to hysterically ramble,

"Now I have blood on my hands, and I can never get it off!"

Blake took this moment to intervene,

"But blood on your hands is not always a bad thing."

Ruby finally looked to the raven-haired girl next to her and waited for her to explain.

"You think that having blood on your hands makes you a killer. It doesn't. In your circumstances, it makes you a warrior."

"… A-a warrior?"

"Yes, a warrior. Because the world needs warriors such as yourself. Warriors are the ones who would do anything for their people. Warriors kill so that others don't have to. Warriors are people who will never turn their backs on their people, no matter what it will cost them. That's what you are, Ruby Rose. A warrior, not a killer. Your soul is pure enough to be a warrior that every one of Remnant needs."

Ruby turned her head away from Blake to continue to look out into the sky. She was no longer drowning herself in guilt or regret, but processing the words of wisdom that had emitted from her teammate. They both stayed quiet for several seconds, Blake allowed the younger girl to take in what she had just been told. Several minutes of comfortable silence pasted before Blake broke it with a question to her leader,

"Are you okay coming back down and seeing the rest of the team now?"

Ruby waited for several seconds before giving her answer.

"Yes."

Blake was surprised, as she was half-expecting Ruby to request waiting a little longer beforehand.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I understand what I did doesn't make me a murderer. I didn't do it because I wanted to, but because I had to so I could defend my people, my friends. So yeah, I'm ready to see them."

Blake smiled greatly, quite a rare feat from the silent faunus.

"I'm glad to hear that."

Ruby returned a small smile as the two stood up and left the roof.

* * *

The pair began heading to their team dorm room when they were intercepted by Weiss and Yang.

"Blake, have you seen…"

Yang's question to her faunus partner was answered wordlessly by the sight of her younger sister trotting along with her.

"Oh, hey sis." Yang smiled lightly as she greeted with her usual friendliness but also kept a careful tone behind it.

Ruby returned the smile, "Hey Yang."

Both Weiss and Yang were surprised by Ruby's suddenly returned joy, so the white hair girl carefully asked,

"Are you … ok?"

Ruby's smile grew even brighter as she relpied to her partner,

"Yep! I feel great, but I'm super sleepy though. I'm going to bed."

This was the reply that Ruby gave before she simply strolled past her teammates and began heading to her intended destination of their dorm room.

The surprised blonde and white haired girls turned to Blake,

"Is she ok?" Yang asked.

Blake smiled, "She'll be fine, she just needed some time to process today."

Yang didn't seem quite so satisfied with this given answer, "Are you _sure_?"

Blake nodded in conformation, "Yes, Ruby is _fine_."

Yang and Weiss seemed to put faith in the raven-haired girl's words. Blake herself had faith in her own words as well. Ruby was going to be fine. She knew that Ruby still disliked the fact that she had killed a person, but she would overcome it.

Blake was sure of it.

* * *

**So there you have it! I don't really think that this will happen in the actual show, but it would be great character development for Ruby and Blake, as well as great development for their relationship. Being the most innocent character on the show (so far), Ruby would have the greatest difficulty coping with killing another person, but it would diffently be a satisfying moment when she is able to rise against it, with Blake's help. Again, I may have completly failed with Ruby and Blake's characters in this one. And again, sorry for that.**

**Well, until next time readers and writers! **


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